INTERIM UPDATE

ERICSSON
MOBILITY
REPORT
ON THE PULSE OF THE NETWORKED SOCIETY

This document is a scheduled update to the subscription

and traffic data section in the Ericsson Mobility Report, SUBSCRIPTIONS
released in November 2016
Mobile broadband
To view or download a copy of the original report, subscriptions grew
please visit: www.ericsson.com/mobility-report
by around 220 million
during Q4 2016

TRAFFIC
Mobile data traffic
grew 55% between
Q4 2015 and Q4 2016

FEBRUARY 2017
Mobile subscriptions
q4 2016
The total number of mobile subscriptions in
Q4 2016 was around 7.5 billion, with 132 million
new subscriptions added during the quarter

Mobile penetration was 101 percent in Q4 2016. > 

The number of unique subscribers is around 5.2 billion.
Other interesting developments include: The difference between the number of subscriptions
and the number of subscribers is due to inactive
> M
 obile subscriptions are growing around
subscriptions, multiple device ownership and/or
4 percent year-on-year
optimization of subscriptions for different types of calls
> India grew the most in the quarter (+70 million), followed
by China (+10 million), Indonesia (+5 million), Mexico
(+3 million) and the US (+3 million) in terms of net
additions. The strong subscription growth in India was
partly due to the launch of an attractive “welcome offer”
for LTE by one operator
> T
 he number of mobile broadband subscriptions1 grew by
around 220 million in Q4 2016 to reach around 4.3 billion.
5.2 billion
This reflects a year-on-year increase of around 25 percent unique subscribers
> L
 TE subscriptions increased by approximately 200 million
to around 1.8 billion and WCDMA/HSPA subscriptions
grew by around 40 million. The majority of 3G/4G
subscriptions have access to GSM/EDGE as a fallback. 1,485
GSM/EDGE-only subscriptions declined by 80 million
> S
 martphone subscriptions make up around 55 percent 1,320
of all mobile phone subscriptions. Around 440 million
smartphones were sold in Q4 2016 which accounts for
85 percent of all mobile phones sold in the quarter 1,120

980

690
APAC (excluding China and India)

580
515

385 405
Eastern Europe
Latin America

Central and
Western
America

Europe

Middle

Africa

China
North

India
East

Mobile subscriptions (millions)

1
Mobile broadband is defined as HSPA, LTE, CDMA2000 EV-DO, TD-SCDMA and Mobile WiMAX

2 ERICSSON MOBILITY REPORT INTERIM UPDATE FEBRUARY 2017

 70
million

New mobile subscriptions in Q4 2016 Top 5 countries by

net additions Q4 2016

1 India +70 million

2 China +10 million
3 Indonesia +5 million
132 million new subscriptions 4 Mexico +3 million
globally in Q4 2016 5 USA +3 million

23
million

16
million

10
million
4 3 3 3
million
million million million
0
million
Western
Europe

Eastern Europe
North
America

Latin
America

Central and

Middle
East

China
Africa

APAC (excluding
China and India)

India

Global
101% penetration

Central and
142% Eastern Europe

124% Western Europe

106% North America 96% China

108% Latin America 114% Middle East 112% APAC*

*(excluding China
and India)

81% Africa 84% India

Subscription penetration (percent of population)

INTERIM UPDATE FEBRUARY 2017 ERICSSON MOBILITY REPORT 3

mobile traffic
q4 2016
The graph below shows total global monthly data and
voice traffic from Q4 2011 to Q4 2016.1 It depicts a
continued strong growth in data traffic and voice traffic
growth in the mid-single digits per year. The growth
in data traffic is being driven by the rise of mobile 55% growth in data
data subscriptions, along with a continued increase traffic between Q4
in average data volume per subscription. Data traffic
grew around 13 percent quarter-on-quarter and
2015 and Q4 2016 8

55 percent year-on-year. It should be noted that there

are large differences in traffic levels between markets,
regions and operators. 7

6
Total (uplink + downlink) traffic (ExaBytes per month)

3
Voice
Data

0
Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Source: Ericsson traffic measurements (Q4 2016) 1

Traffic does not include DVB-H, Wi-Fi, or Mobile WiMAX. Voice does not include VoIP

The contents of this document are based on a number of theoretical dependencies and assumptions and Ericsson shall not be bound
by or liable for any statement, representation, undertaking or omission made in this document. Furthermore Ericsson may at any time
change the contents of this document at its sole discretion and shall not be liable for the consequences of such changes.

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